Moon Breathing

Moon Breathing draws on the imagery of the moon, echoing the slim crescent it shows while waxing and waning and the restless way moonlight scatters. The swordsman pours that idea into footwork and cuts, producing rapid yet heavy strikes that fold attack and guard together. Nearly every slash arcs in the shape of a crescent.

The discipline traces back to Sun Breathing, the root from which all of the foundational styles grew. When Michikatsu Tsugikuni tried to study Sun Breathing under his twin, Yoriichi, he found the original method beyond his reach. Rather than abandon the effort, he shaped a wholly separate form of his own, and that creation became Moon Breathing.

Only Michikatsu wields it. He was among the earliest slayers to harness Total Concentration Breathing, and he kept refining the style across his long life. As Hashira such as Kyojuro Rengoku and Muichiro Tokito had never heard of it, the knowledge of the style appears to have faded from record, perhaps because its maker defected to Muzan Kibutsuji and struck down the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps.

After turning into a demon, Kokushibo fused Moon Breathing with his Blood Demon Art, so each form spits out swarms of jagged crescent blades that fly far beyond a blade's normal reach. Because every shown technique relies on that demonic power, how a living swordsman would replicate them stays unclear, and several were carried out with an extended flesh katana.

Across his centuries he assembled more forms than any other style is known to carry, at least sixteen by the clash inside the Infinity Castle, of which eleven appear on the page. The opening First Form, Dark Moon, Evening Palace (Chapter 165), is a single horizontal draw that scatters chaotic crescents and recalls the quick-draw art of iaijutsu. The Fifth Form, Moon Spirit Calamitous Eddy (Chapter 167), layers curved cuts into a churning vortex without him swinging the katana at all. Later entries such as the Sixteenth Form, Moonbow, Half Moon (Chapter 173), send a half dozen arcs crashing down hard enough to gouge craters.

Kokushibo, known in life as Michikatsu Tsugikuni, both invented and exclusively practiced this style. The early forms lean more toward close combat with extended reach, while the later ones grow increasingly long ranged. Only two styles have ever been merged with a demon's Blood Demon Art; Thunder Breathing is the other one, yet Moon Breathing was never witnessed in its pure, undemonized form.